Real good WAPO article on high suicide rates among White men

[cilla4progress]

The reinvention of a ‘real man’


In BUFFALO, Wyoming

Bill Hawley believes too many men are unwilling or unable to talk about their feelings, and he approaches each day as an opportunity to show them how.

“There’s my smile,” he says to a leathered cowboy in the rural northeast Wyoming town where he lives.

“I could cry right now thinking about how beautiful your heart is,” he says to a middle-aged male friend at work.




https://wapo.st/3wV0DSh

[Scrivener7]

2. I agree that it's a good article, but I am very sick of hearing how hard it is for white men that

they believed they were entitled to a lot of things that some of them don't end up getting.

It has to do with the gap between the expectations men have for their lives and the reality of their individual experiences, worsened by cultural norms that discourage them from expressing any emotions besides anger.

Lol. It's easier for the rest of us because we never believed we were entitled to whatever expectations these men had, I guess.

I'd rather see Bill's salary go to reducing the numbers of disappeared and murdered native women, for example.

[2naSalit]

3. +1

[cilla4progress]

4. I think it's helpful to hear this explanation,

And my compassion can spread to this group.

I often think and wonder about the premise in the article.

I think our society - the patriarchy - does a disservice to white men in the expectations it sets, including frowning on men's needs to connect to and express their fears of failure and not "measuring up."

And it rolls down hill to the rest of us.

[onecaliberal]

6. So much this. The patriarchy is evil, it bears most of the responsibility for our current state of

Affairs.

[Scrivener7]

8. But isn't dealing with the "coulda, woulda, shoulda" simply part of becoming an adult?

Isn't what we are talking about here the process, common to all people, of accepting the difference between expectations and actual life experience?

I have compassion for all people as we deal with that process, but it is, after all, common to all of us. I don't have extra compassion for white men because their expectations might have been grander and therefore their gap between expectation and reality is larger.

Also, just an observation: it wasn't till I was re-reading your post that my eye got stuck on "rolls downhill to the rest of us." It is deeply ingrained in all of us that they are somehow uphill and their experience of this is of importance to all of us. Of course that is true. It is. And that bothers me. Because they often do not point their emotions inward.

[Sympthsical]

5. That was a neat trick

Read an article about a problem.

Immediately move to be an example of the problem in real time.

Like I said. Neat.

[Scrivener7]

7. Sure. Because my reply PROVES how misunderstood white men are. Please.

[treestar]

11. The highest rate of suicide is a concern

These are individuals. White men don't get everything they want in life either.

And there are also all the factors that come before the crisis point. One theory circulating among social scientists holds that White men have fewer collective histories of persecution that can rationalize poor life outcomes, which worsens their humiliation at unrealized ambitions. Another theory points to research showing Black and Latino people have more social “togetherness” within their families and communities than White people, which could foster a greater sense of belonging.

It's like the collective history of persecution is an advantage in that you can rationalize your life's outcome not being all you want. If I don't get what I want, I can just say it's sexism. That's easier than having to say it's your own failure.

Merely being a white man does not make you a part of the aristocracy. Any of them suffering, and the unhelpful attitude makes them double down. This guy is showing some compassion and trying to help the standard of masculinity - so it's not the strong silent type that holds emotions in. That's helpful to everyone.

[Scrivener7]

12. "...the collective history of persecution is an advantage..." and lack of it accounts for the high

suicide rate.

That's a crazy, interesting, and possibly absolutely accurate, take on it.

But your other observation: "the unhelpful attitude makes them double down" is problematic. If it really does cause them to double down, we're back to talking about people who are simply not growing up. Others' "unhelpful" attitudes are not at fault here. Just as their historically "unhelpful" attitude is not at fault for how the rest of us handle the emotions of life's disappointments.

[MIpen03]

13. This is a bullshit take

I was watching TYT coverage of the 2016 election and one individual said “poor white people, you’re on on your own.”

I wanted to say, have you ever been through the appalachians and seen the rank, generational poverty, the lack of schools and hospitals and internet and healthy food. So many of the same problems those in the inner city face! Desperate map dot towns in the Midwest and mountain west that had their heyday sometime before 1925. These people don’t have expectations. They don’t assume they’re entitled to the world because they’re white. They’re generationally poor, their grandparents were poor, their parents were poor, they are poor, and their children will be poor. They haven’t had expectations for decades! They voted for Trump simply because he spared a moment to offer them a worthless platitude.

But I suppose you’d shrug and snidely say “boo hoo those poooor white men.”

[Scrivener7]

14. They voted for trump because he told them they were better than everyone else. That

everyone else was inferior to them

And because of all the factors you cite, they were desperate to hear that. Because it is so ingrained in their psyches that even the evidence of their eyes and their life experiences can't disabuse them of the notion.

He told them they are right in their bigotry and sexism and ignorance.

When clearly they are wrong.

And that is exactly what we are talking about here.

[Coventina]

16. In addition, Trump told them he was going to give them their privilege back,

while reversing the gains other groups had been making.

I'm finding it hard to drum up a lot of sympathy for the "Fuck Your Feelings" crowd.



On edit: clarity

[treestar]

15. True, these are the people who we cannot expect to understand

the white privilege theme. The "boo hoo" reaction is really unhelpful. White people also don't get everything they want, and can fail, and be poor.

Eddie Murphy had a routine that was funny. It took me a while to realize who he was poking fun at. The I started to think he was poking fun at black people who had this idea that being white meant you got all you wanted - the exaggeration was what made it funny.

[chowder66]

17. +1

[Coventina]

9. So, when the violence (physical, economic, political, and otherwise) white men have perpetrated

against almost every other group in this country is starting to be curbed, they react with self-pity and violence.

[cilla4progress]

10. An explanation is not necessarily

an excuse.

But I think about this with my very own White male husband of 42 years!

His dad died after a long illness when he was 10, with 3 older siblings - all teenagers at the time.

He presents as stoic. Fortunately he is not violent. But it seems he is not "allowed" by our culture and its values to show much emotion or break down under pressure. He always has to stand guard over his emotions. It's actually kinda frustrating to live with.

When my own Dad died - who my husband was close to - my husband just got really sick for a week!

Emotion turned inward, I believe.